Published in the January 13, 2016 edition
By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — School Superintendent Dr. Kim Smith shared her goals for the coming year with the School Committee last night. She told the committee that she had attended a seminar on school superintendent evaluations where it was suggested January to January as a desirable cycle over which to evaluate a superintendent’s performance.
She presented her six major goals and identified her action plan for accomplishing each and set benchmarks throughout the year to measure her progress.
She called her first goal a “professional practice goal.” That goal was to continue in the “New Superintendents’ Induction Program” through May 2016 “to support a successful transition to the role of Superintendent.”
Under “District Goal #1,” Smith talked about “investing in and developing educators to provide students with powerful teaching and learning that prepare them for college, career and citizenship.”
Her “key actions” under this goal included leading professional development sessions for district administrators; utilizing school visits and “learning walks” with principals to support school improvement; overseeing job-imbedded teacher collaboration, and overseeing principals’ work in establishing effective “professional learning community” structures for job-imbedded professional learning.
Smith’s “District Goal #2” involved “implementing consistent, standards-aligned curriculum supported by high quality instructional resources.”
He benchmarks for this goal revolved around implementing and monitoring curricula at each grade level, including areas such as phonics, literacy, English Language Arts and Math.
Her action plan for this goal includes purchasing and distributing materials and devices, training staff and regular classroom visits and “learning walks” to assess curriculum and technology.
District Goal #3 was to “ensure that each student receives targeted, data-informed instruction with appropriate social and emotional supports.”
For this goal, Smith plans to communicate a clear vision for individualized student learning and to support educators in using data to support student needs. She will also oversee the implementation of common curriculum across all grade levels and content areas.
District Goal #6 involves “developing district core values to establish a clarity of purpose and culture of practice in the Wakefield Public schools.
Smith plans to communicate her core values presentation to all stakeholders, visit each school to hear their core values, survey parents on their core values and to present her findings on core values to the community.
Smith also talked about “measures of student growth” through 2018 focusing on student writing and college readiness.
She would like to see students demonstrate measurable growth in their writing skills, with all students improving in one or more elements of the writing assessment rubric by the end of each school year.
Smith would like to see students at the High School demonstrate college readiness with increasing numbers of students performing at advanced levels on the English Language Arts and Math MCAS. She would like to see the percentage of students scoring at advanced levels on the ELA and math MCAS grow by at least 5 percent by June 2018.
